The arbitration system is in the crosshairs of the clubs. But the conflict goes beyond the Negreira Case. On April 19, all the presidents of the First and Second Division are summoned in an Extraordinary Assembly to ask Laporta for explanations and, in addition, to debate the future of Spanish arbitration. There are several clubs that have a great anger and discontent with said estate and they are asking for changes. One of them is that the Technical Committee of Referees, which is now chaired by Luis Medina Cantalejo, becomes completely independent and is not integrated into the Federation.
The VAR, the lack of unified criteria, the excess of red cards and the sanctions imposed on players and coaches for criticizing the referees are several of the aspects that have the clubs very angry. These point to AS that made the referees the best paid in the world seasons ago, but that there are still many controversies and erroneous decisions. What makes one of the points of the day of the Extraordinary Assembly of April 19 bear the title “Future of the provision of the service”. This is because some presidents They have already shown their disaffection on this issue and are asking LaLiga to propose changes.
These clubs, who affirm that there are good referees in Spanish football, They suggest that it is more of a governance issue. Hence, one of the solutions they propose is to remove the Arbitration Committee from the protection of the Federation. That it be an autonomous entity financed by LaLiga and the RFEF. To face this restructuring, they have several models on the table: Premier, Bundesliga, ACB and MLS.
Besides, this issue is addressed when this season the collective arbitration agreement signed by LaLiga and the RFEF ends, which both entities have been negotiating for several months and could last until the summer if there is no consensus. As is often the case when both entities must reach an agreement on some matter (matches on Mondays and Tuesdays, calendar, coordination agreement, Plan Miami…). The clubs will be informed about the negotiations of this agreement one day before the Assembly, so that all the presidents have the necessary information when making or addressing any proposal. The idea of LaLiga is that the teams themselves take the initiative and present their point of view to improve the situation that makes them so angry. And that is where the idea of several clubs to make the CTA independent of the Federation is around. It’s more, a president affirms to this newspaper that such a proposal, if raised, would go ahead with “an overwhelming majority.”
However, It is a complex path and one that would lead to a new conflict between LaLiga and the Federation. This last it adheres to the fact that the current situation is that which corresponds to legality. They point to the The Sports Law establishes that the referees must depend on the Federations, as they also refer to the FIFA and UEFA statutes. “The member federations will be obliged to create a commission of referees directly subordinate to them,” says article 14.1.G of FIFA.
The level of the referees and their criteria used in LaLiga are in the crosshairs of the clubs, which demand the unification of criteria and that they live up to being the best paid in the world. Although FIFA and UEFA hold Spanish arbitration in great esteem and consideration, since they are the most designated for their competitions, as it happens in the Champions League or in the last World Cup, where Spain was the country that contributed the most referees to the VAR of said tournament.